OPINION: Sleeping better is like taking up a competitive sport, with coaches and high-end training devices. But do they get results?
A decade ago, high achievers would boast of how little sleep they got as if it were a sign of courage and stamina. That flipped on its head in recent years, with length and quality of sleep the new badge of honour.
How useful such devices are is contentious. Many of the makers claim that customers experience improved sleep and health. Few offer peer-reviewed clinical data to back it up, however. Some psychologists and researchers dispute whether the data collected is even accurate, and if not, then we’re faced with the maxim that no data is better than bad data.Even if it is accurate, there’s still a problem: most sleep-tracking devices merely collate information.
Next up the sleep chain are coaches who offer practical, personalised, and easily followed tips, with some even visiting your home to provide guidance on mattress suitability, as well as assessing the light and sound in the bedroom. Among the approaches offered to improve slumber is the R90 technique, which frames the night around 90-minute sleep cycles – the average time a person takes to go through the stages of light, deep and REM. Courses are available online that may help.
“You don’t improve what you don’t measure,” Eight Sleep co-founder and chief executive Matteo Franceschetti told me recently. “For most of the people just having a proxy and a ballpark of how well they’re sleeping, that is very important.”
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